i may have already answered my own question but, is it possible to hook up 4 in boat speakers to the deck, use rca's for the tower(fusion 3 ways) the other rca's for a sub amp, and still be able to dim the boat speakers different from the tower with the fader on the deck? oh its an xmd3 deck. i dont have my boat yet so i cant really play around, and if i needed extra stuff i want to get it now, so when the boat shows up, its all ready to go. can anyone help me

Depends on how the fader in the deck works but usually yes. I am sure Grant can answer you question better since he runs one of these, but then again he uses a line driver so the deck is used less for control and more as a source.

Maybe this will work; front speaker outs to all boat speakers, rear line outs to tower, sub outs to sub (if it has them). Check if the deck can handle a 2 ohm load on the front speaker outs. Your sub amp may have a bass level control, use it if it does.

When you play with the fader you're gonna affect both the high level outs (speaker wire connections to your in-boat speakers) as well as the RCA outs (to your amp and tower speakers, so I think the answer is 'no'. Once you start using the high level outs to drive your in-boat speakers, you're going to run into problems trying to control other speakers down the line from your headunit.

Mikeski, I would highly recommend against your suggestion "front speaker outs to all boat speakers". That would mean wiring his four in-boat speakers in parallel to yield two channels, which would drop the load to 2ohms on those channels. Most headunits won't handle <4ohms loads.

i was thinking of putting all four on the fronts only but i found an online manual which says: speaker inpedance 4 ohm (4ohm to 8ohm allowable) my boat speakers are only the waterproof white clarion things (for now) so im assuming that it will be 2 ohm on the front output if they are all 4 on two outputs, so not good am i right here. will a line driver give seperate control? might need to research this...

Biz, not trying to wheel and deal here, 'but', I've got a brand new DEI Viper 6 channel amp that I bought but never used that might solve your problems. This amp could be connected via the preamp outs from your headunit, and also has a passthrough output connection for your sub amp. With this amp in place you could run all four in-boat speakers and both tower speakers each off it's own channel, and pass a single on through to your sub amp. If you're interested, let me know. I'd just like to re-coup what I spent for the amp.

thanks mike but im "down under" and it'd prolly be expensive by the time i got it here, but you've got a good point. i might need to look into the series/parallel thing, im sure i could get them back to 4 ohm doing that...i hope, either that or i put on a pirotechnics show in my boat shed.

ok im a stereo idiot. if i use the front rca's for my 1000.2amp(for the tower) and my 100.2 on the back/sub rca's(for the sub) THEN i cannot plug any interior speakers into the deck outs.. right? what in buggeries am i going to do with them, i dont want to add another amp, i dont think ive got the alternator power for it, but i'd like to fade between the interior and the tower. i guess my only option is to leave the sub out of the equation?!?

ok more thinking done, if i series and parallel wire the 4 interior speakers, they can go on the front channels and still be at 4 ohm (right?) then plug my sub amp into the rear rca's, and out of that amp into the tower amp, so that's all on the rear channels(right?) then i can install switches on the remote on wires for both of those amps, and still have the flexibility i was after. I can fade between the boat and tower , turn the tower on or off, and also turn the sub on or off. this must work?!?! now i just need to figure out how to wire them in series and parallel to get the 4 ohm load... Can someone tell me im not going to blow all this gear up. thanks

worst case scenario you wire everything wrong, the radio/amp will just shut off. Most stereo equipment have protection circuits in place for this type of thing. you could do the series-parallel thing but you'd have very littel power going to them. I'm assuming a 50x4 HU (35x4 RMS) In theroy you'll be showing each speaker 17.5 watts, so realistically proabbly close to 10-15. You will barley be able to hear them

im thinking the more proffesional way would be a small amp for them, making it 3 amps, them a line driver, so i can turn the gains down a bit and then the whole system wont take too much power, thus no need for a bigger alternator. i dont need an extra battery because the stereo is only used for like 10 minutes when the engine is off and changing riders. plus only 2 out of three amps will be on at a time the interior will be off when the tower is on and vice versa...

I want to make sure I understand correctly. I have SAN 2004, XMD3. I have a five channel amp. No other devices, just a sub and six speakers. I was going to double up on two pair so in reality only four speakers. A question that biz I think sort of answers is if I double up, do I lose power, or does the amp compensate? Is there a basic way to front speakers as we know them today, and rear speakers as we know them and on the side a sub that works good. Its the most basic setup and I am having troubles making it work. It seems as though I can't have both rear speakers and sub without putting all speakers on one channel? aRgh....

I run two amps. One 1500 for the tower and a 600 for the boat. Toggle both amps, on and off. When the tower is on you can't hear the boat speakers anyway. While sitting i turn off the tower amp and turn on the boat amp. This works well for me...